Phil Hay/Athletic latest - kinda of summary of the Radz years published tonight.
Kind of goes with my recent word-flow on here that Radz 'lost interest this season'.
It's a subscription piece, long read but appears an honest assessment.

1.On the football side, Radrizzani’s tendency was to delegate. Kinnear, who also joined in the summer of the Italian’s takeover, was given responsibility for managing the finances and Orta directed decisions on the playing side, with a high level of influence over transfers and recruitment. When Leeds named Paul Heckingbottom as their head coach in February 2018, Radrizzani had been in the Far East for most of the preceding month. He appeared on the morning of Heckingbottom’s appointment to, as one person at Elland Road put it, “look in his eyes and be sure he was convinced”. Pursuing Bielsa later that year was Orta’s idea — as was the flawed punt on Jesse Marsch in 2022 — and, though Radrizzani was involved in one of the initial meetings with the Argentinian in Buenos Aires, negotiations fell to others in the senior management team. Likewise, it was Orta who often had the job of delivering news of a sacking, in one instance flying to interrupt Heckingbottom’s family holiday in Greece to tell him face-to-face that he was losing his job.

Radrizzani, though, could be forthright when he wanted to be. He would make appearances at EFL and Premier League meetings, even though owners tended to skirt them and leave them to chief executives or similar. He mixed closely with the squad
whenever he was in England and many of the players found him to be good company, an affable chairman and fairly approachable. But in other moments he demonstrated his authority. The first time former head coach Marsch came under serious pressure the season, Radrizzani spoke at a gathering of the squad. The impression he gave them was that, far from losing faith in Marsch, he might offer him a new contract — a public show of faith. It was a way of saying that, when it came to it, the opinion that mattered most was his.
On occasions, that went for transfers too. Shortly after arriving as head coach, Bielsa told Radrizzani that by retaining Vieira, he would turn the talented midfielder into a £15million player. Radrizzani digested the advice but sold Vieira to Sampdoria for £7million anyway, using the money to pay for Patrick Bamford. More often than not, his patience with a head coach dwindled before that of those around him at senior management level. He was inclined to remove Heckingbottom’s predecessor, Thomas Christiansen, a month before he actually did. Bielsa’s dismissal in 2022 came two and a half weeks after the Italian first began pondering it. Marsch might have gone in January of this year had Orta not fought his corner after a 2-1 defeat at Aston Villa, buying the American another few games. Part of the reason for Orta’s departure as director of football a month ago was that in the wake of a 4-1 rout at Bournemouth, Orta was still backing Javi Gracia to keep Leeds up. Radrizzani and the board around him thought otherwise and the disagreement was irreconcilable.


What is obvious now is that none of Leeds’ choices of manager either side of Bielsa have worked at all. Bielsa was Radrizzani’s golden goose, even if Bielsa’s last season and his unceremonious exit badly damaged the relationship between club and coach. At no stage did Bielsa and Radrizzani have much of a personal connection. They would interact from time to time, like in the summer of 2019 when Bielsa chivvied Radrizzani via WhatsApp to sign Helder Costa from Wolves, but Orta was Bielsa’s main point of contact and Bielsa liked to keep himself tucked away at the training ground. Though Radrizzani was the money, the crowd saw Bielsa as the icon and the genius, an attitude which has hardened in the months since he left. It is a long-held truth in football that no child has posters of their club’s chairman on the wall. Murals are reserved for men like Bielsa, for players like Pablo Hernandez.
The success of appointing Bielsa was real and vivid, a unique moment in time. Interest and attention came from all quarters. In February 2020, as Leeds were starting to motor towards promotion, Bielsa invited two guests for a meal at Piccolino, an Italian restaurant in the Yorkshire village of Collingham. The guests were Pep Guardiola and Lorenzo Buenaventura, Guardiola’s fitness coach at Manchester City.
They ate steak and drank soft drinks, tucked away in their own little corner, Bielsa in a plain white T-shirt and Guardiola in a black zip-up. If time allowed, Guardiola would not hesitate to accept an invite from Bielsa. That was what Leeds had acquired: a head coach who the best of the best-loved and whose football served as a magnet, so easy to admire and enjoy. The club went up into the Premier League five months later and Bielsa’s little flat in Wetherby was swamped with fans on the night that it happened. It looked and felt like Leeds had hit the jackpot. It looked as if Radrizzani had all an owner could wish for; like he had won the impossible bet.